NEWS - AMERICAS
California wants 5 Million electric cars by 2030
California Governor Jerry Brown has announced
that he wants to get 5 million electric
zero-emission cars on the state’s roads
by 2030, and has signed an executive order
committing the state to that plan. In Brown’s
16th and final State of the State speech as
governor, he outlined an ambitious target
that makes previous goals seem like child’s
play. That said, the state was already struggling
to meet its goal of 1.5 million electric
vehicles by 2025 due to a significant lack of
charging infrastructure (California currently
has about 350,000 electric vehicles, the
most in the nation). As of 2016, there were
around 14.5 million registered cars in California,
the country’s most populous state.
Brown is more or less envisioning a world
where at least a third of all California cars
give off zero emissions, likely meaning they
are electric vehicle. “The goal is to make
our neighborhoods and farms healthier, our
vehicles cleaner — zero emission the sooner
the better — and all of our technologies
increasingly lowering their carbon output,”
Brown said in the speech. The big problem
with scaling up so fast, however, is finding
a place for so many EVs to charge. California
currently has roughly 12,000 charging
stations. That’s good compared to the rest
of the country, but woefully inadequate for
the bump Brown imagines. That’s why his
executive order calls for a $2.5 billion investment
for a surge in building chargers,
with a goal of 250,000 around the state by
2025 Current tech means that it takes longer
to charge cars than fill them with gas even
in ideal conditions. With a single charger
connected to a 240-volt outlet, getting a
full Tesla charge takes around 9 hours to
charge all the way. Surveys have shown that
“passion in the mind of the buyer” affects
car purchases. They don’t want to have to
wait a long time to drive their cars, which is
why PG&E wants to spend some its money
on “fast-charging stations, which can refuel
EVs in 20-30 minutes.” Brown’s executive
order would up the number of fast-chargers
from the current 1,500 to about 10,000.
US Payments Forum
announces EMV updates
The United States Payments Forum has
released its winter 2018 market snapshot,
which includes updates on EMV enablement
and contactless payments. Several
of the global payment networks reported in
December that the volume of chip-on-chip
credit card transactions has surpassed 50
percent, and the value of those transactions
exceeds 60 percent. Currently, 96 percent
of the top 200 merchants are now accepting
chip payments compared with just 29
percent at the beginning of last year. Forum
members have also reported a slight increase
in chip transaction volumes at retail
petroleum pumps. At present in the United
States, contactless payments accounts for
a relatively small number of transactions,
however, transit has proven to be a driver
for broader adoption of contactless payments
in other countries, the press release
said. “In the United States, we are seeing
major transit agencies like New York City’s
MTA and Boston’s MBTA announce plans to
implement contactless open payments fare
systems, so we could see similar trends in
those regions,” U.S. Payments Forum director
Randy Vanderhoof said.
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